With Lewis Hamilton's McLaren suffering a gearbox failure on lap 24, Webber has now reclaimed the lead of the championship by four points from the Briton, with Vettel a further six points down.

It appeared as if we were in for a processional run to the finish, but thanks to nothing more than that piece of debris on the track from Vitantonio Liuzzi's Force India, it sparked remarkable scenes, penalties and retirements.

It brought the safety car into play. With the exception of Webber, running third at the time, the bulk of the field piled in to change their tyres.

Mercedes' Nico Rosberg was primarily the instigator of the mayhem - or at least part of his pit crew were as they failed to correctly fit his right rear tyre which worked loose, initially rolling and then bouncing its way through the other pit crews before he was forced to retire.

Whether it was a distraction to Renault's pit team is unclear, but Robert Kubica was released too early by his lollipop man and within an instant, he had run into the side of Force India's Adrian Sutil, who had to retire.

The drama, though, did not end there because just as the safety car was poised to return after two laps on track, Vettel allowed Webber to open up a considerable margin. Vettel, though, allowed the gap to Webber to exceed 10 car lengths, which is against the regulations, resulting in him being handed a drive-through penalty.

At the end the margin from Webber was 17.8secs, with Alonso holding off Vettel for second, followed by Massa in fourth and Renault's Vitaly Petrov - enjoying his best result for the team - with fifth.

That was also the case for Williams' Nico Hulkenberg who was sixth, whilst Pedro De La Rosa ended his points drought for Sauber with seventh. Behind Jenson Button in eighth was the second Sauber of Kamui Kobayashi, whilst Williams' Rubens Barrichello claimed the final point.